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User Manual Nord Sound Manager

Version 5.x

Copyright Clavia DMI AB 2009

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Nord Sound Manager

The Nord Sound Manager is the application that allows you to organize the various memory areas, the partitions in your Nord unit. The functionality of the Manager depends on which Nord instrument you use. It can also used to download pianos, samples or programs to the Nord or to upload any of these items - called sounds - from the Nord memory to the computer hard drive. The Nord Sound Manager provides access to various methods to download the sounds to the unit and a function to backup and restore the entire Nord memory.

System requirements
The Nord Sound Manager is compatible with computers running Mac OSX 10.4 or later, Windows XP and Windows Vista. If you run the Nord Manager on a Windows computer, you also need a Clavia USB Driver of version 2.14 or later installed. The Nord units that are compatible with the Sound Manager are: Electro 3, Stage and Stage EX (from OS v4.0), Wave (OS 2.x) and Nord C2. MM Nord OS Updates, USB drivers and instructions on how to install these are available at the www.nordkeyboards.com website and on the DVD that accompanies this unit.

Overview

The Toolbar

The Toolbar gives you direct access to some of the more frequently used functions in the Nord Sound Manager. Clicking on an icon will activate one of these functions, and a dialogue will often appear asking for conrmation or further instructions from you.

The Tabs

You can work with the contents of the Piano, Sample, Organ Presets and the Program partitions. These are accessed from the tabs, conveniently labeled, Piano, Samp Lib, Program and Organ Presets. If no Nord unit is connected to the computer, pages, icons and memory locations will be grayed out. Only the appropriate tabs for each individual instrument are available. The Wave e.g. is not compatible with the Nord Piano Library which means that the Manager will not show a Piano tab if a Wave is connected to the computer. EE The actions that take place in the Nord Sound Manager will affect the memories in the Nord unit. The Manager is on-line with a connected Nord at all times; any changes that you perform in the Manager will immediately be executed in the instrument. If you e.g. delete a piano, sample or a Program from the list in the Nord Sound Manager, that same sound will also be deleted from the Nord Flash memory.

Select the partition that you wish to work in with the Tabs. The Piano tab allows you to change the content of the piano partition, the Samp Lib tab is the sample partition and the Program tab allows you to organize the programs etc. The individual pianos, samples, programs or organ presets will be referred to as sounds in this manual and in the application itself.

Press Ctrl+Tab on the computer keyboard to cycle between the tabs. The lists can be ordered according to location, name, size, version and date, in ascending and descending order. Just click on a headline to select a preferred view.

Partition Memory Indicator

The memory indicator at the bottom of the window indicates how much memory is being used in the selected partition. The red area shows the used memory, green indicates space that is available for new sounds.

Right-Clicking
If you right-click on a sound, a context menu will provide the following options: Select in Instrument This will select the chosen sound in the Manager list, to be instantly accessible on the Nord.

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Upload This will upload the selected sound from the Nord instrument to the computer hard drive to a folder of your choice. Download This is only available if you right-click on an empty location that does not contain a sound. This allows you to choose a le on the hard drive, to be downloaded to the location in the Nord instrument. Rename This allows you to rename, and assign a category to a Program. Characters supported are: a-z, A-Z, 0-9 and a hyphen (-) and the name can contain up to 16 characters. Any other characters will not be displayed in the Sound Manager lists. MM Pianos or Samples cannot be renamed, this option will not be available if you right-click on any of these.

The Quick Tour

Lets get acquainted with some of the functions in the Nord Sound Manager.

Transfer a sound to the instrument

When the Nord leaves the factory, its memory partitions are lled with sounds. In order to be able to download additional sounds, you may have to delete some of the factory sounds. If you ever want to reload any deleted sounds, they are available on the DVD that was included with the Nord, or available as a download from the www.nordkeyboards.com web site, in the download area.

Deleting a sound

Delete This will delete the selected sound(s) from the Nord instrument memory.

1 Connect the Nord to the computer and launch the Nord Sound
Manager.

File Formats
The Nord Sound Manager creates and/or uses les with the following extensions, depending on which unit is used: .npno - These are the piano les from the Nord Piano library. .nsmp - These are the sample les from the Nord Sample library. .nepg - These are the Electro 3 Program les. .neop - These are the Electro 3 Organ Preset les. .nwp - These are the Wave Program les. .nspg - These are the Stage Program les. .nss - These are the Stage Synth Patches les. .ncpg - These are the C2 Program les. .neb - This is the extension used for the Nord Electro 3 backup les. .nwb - This is the extension used for the Nord Wave backup les. .nsb - This is the extension used for the Nord Stage backup les. .ncb - This is the extension used for the Nord C2 backup les. Just as any other computer le on your hard drive, these les may be renamed, emailed, copied, moved, lost or even stored in a safe location if an evil computer crash suddenly decides to take your hard drive for ride. The les are exclusively compatible for each individual model, the only exception to this are the Piano- and Sample library les that several models can use.

2 A tab will open and the current content of the partition in the
instrument.

3 Select a piano to delete and press the Delete icon in the toolbar.
You can also right-click on the sound and choose the Delete option or use the backspace or delete keys on the computer keyboard.

4 You will be asked to conrm your intentions and then the sound in
the Nord will be deleted.

Download a new sound

1 Using drag and drop: Open the folder on the computer hard
drive where the new sound is located.

2 Make sure that the Sound Manager window and the folder are
visible on the screen.

3 Drag the new sound to the white area in the Sound Manager
sample list. When the destination location will turn gray, release the mouse button.

4 The Clean Deleted Space process will start to prepare the memory and then the new piano will be downloaded to the instrument. If there isnt enough free space, a message will appear in the lower left text area in the Nord Sound Manager.

If the Organize option is active in the View menu, you can drop a sound on any free location in the bank. If this function is not active, the new sound will be automatically placed at the rst free location in the bank. MM The pianos are categorized and can only be added to the correct bank; electric pianos can not be added to the grand bank, the grands cannot be dropped in the clavinet bank etc.

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1 Using the Toolbar or Menu command: Click on the Sound

Down icon in the toolbar. The same command is also available in the File menu: Sound Download (Ctrl-D).

MM

When you click on Download a dialogue appears to inform you that the content of the destination bank in the Nord instrument will be replaced with that of the source le.

2 Browse to the folder on the hard drive where the desired sound is
located, select it and click Open. The sound will now be added to its bank.

These methods can also be used with any program, sample, organ preset or piano that you wish to add, as long as the unit is compatible with that type of sound.

Upload sounds from the instrument

1 Select the desired partition that holds the sounds that you wish to
store on the computer hard drive.

2 Select the bank and the sound. Shift-click will allow you to select
several consecutive sounds; Ctrl-click will allow you to select nonconsecutive sounds. Here we have selected a few of the samples:

If you select All in the destination bank drop down, you can replace all the sounds in a partition with those on a folder structure on the hard drive. If Search Subfolders is active, you can browse to the top folder of a structure as the parent of the source les.

Organize the program partition

By using drag and drop, you can organize the content of the Program partition.

1 Make sure that Organize is activated in the View menu. 2 Select and drag a program from the destination location to the
desired location.

3 Click on the Sound Up tool or right-click on the selected sound(s)

and select Upload. The dialogue will prompt you to browse to the desired destination folder on the hard drive. The upload process may take a few moments depending on the size of the sounds.

If you drop a sound on a free location, the sound will be moved from the source location. If you drop on a location that is occupied, the two sounds will trade places.

3 Select a program and press the Ctrl-key on the computer keyboard. If you now drag this selection, the Program will be copied and pasted at the destination instead of just being moved.

Upload a complete partition to the hard drive

1 Make sure that the desired partition (and bank) is focused in

the Nord Sound Manager. You will also have the opportunity to change the source bank in an upcoming dialogue.

Search Box

2 Click on the Bank Up tool, or select the File/Bank Upload menu

command (Ctrl-Shift-U). Verify that the source bank is correct and browse to the desired destination folder on the computer hard drive.

1 By entering one or several characters in the Search Box, you can

lter out the content that is presented in the lists.

This provides you with a quick way to nd duplicate programs, all programs made by the mysterious AD (Ake Danielsson) or all programs with e.g. the phrase string in their names.

Auto Select
By clicking on the Auto Select icon in the toolbar, you toggle the Auto Select function on or off.

You can also select All at the bottom of the sample bank list drop down. This will upload the entire content of the partition to the computer hard drive. If the Create Subfolders option is checked, a folder structure - partition/ bank/sounds - will automatically be created in the destination folder.

Download sounds to the instrument

When this is activated and you scroll through the Pianos, Program or Sample list using the computer keyboard arrow keys, these will automatically be selected in the Nord instrument.

Double-clicking on a Piano, Program or Sample will also select it in the instrument.

1 Click on the Bank Down tool, or select the File/Bank Download

menu command (Ctrl-Shift-D).

2 Verify that the destination bank is correct and browse to the desired source folder on the computer hard drive.

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Bank Up

Nord Sound Manager reference

Toolbar

This function will upload an entire bank of pianos, samples or programs to the computer hard drive. The default source will be the currently active bank, but you may choose another partition and bank if you wish. Click on the Choose Folder button to select the destination on the hard drive. If the Create Subfolders option is checked, a folder structure will automatically be created in the destination folder.

Organize When this option is active, the lists will show all the available locations in the selected partition/bank and not only the occupied ones. This will for instance make it easier to drag a le to a specic free location in the middle of the list. If this is inactive, only the occupied locations will be shown. Dual View When this option is checked, the window will be divided in two lists. The two lists makes it easy to move programs from one location to another. You can make the lists show separate banks with the dropdowns. Rearranging programs is simply a matter of drag and drop. Drag a program from one bank/list to another bank/list in either direction. Auto Select With this function active, scrolling through the program list with the computer keyboard arrow keys will automatically select the programs in the Nord instrument. Sound Up Use this function to upload one or several sounds from the Nord instrument to the computer hard drive. Sound Down Use this function to download one or several sounds from the computer hard drive to the next available location in the selected partition. Rename This allows you to rename, and assign a category to a Program. 16 characters can be used, and the supported characters are: a-z, AZ, 0-9 and the hyphen (-). Any other characters will not be displayed in the Sound Manager lists. MM Pianos or samples cannot be renamed so this function is not available if you have selected any of these.

MM

If a folder with the same name as the source partition/bank already exists in the location on the hard drive, this folders entire content will be replaced by the uploaded les from the Nord instrument.

Bank Down This function will download an entire bank of sounds (pianos, samples or programs) from the computer hard drive to the Nord instrument. The default destination will be the currently active bank, but you may choose another partition and bank if you wish. Click on the Choose Folder button to select the source on the hard drive. EE The destination bank in the Nord instrument will be replaced by the content of the source folder. Backup This will make a backup of all the sounds in the Nord instrument. The le that is created on the hard drive will have an extension that depends on the instrument you have. Backing up the entire memory content in this manner will take some time, depending on the sizes of the samples.

Backing up from the Nord Sound Manager is done in an incremental manner. Unless you change the name or the location of the back up le, only the samples and/or programs that have been changed since the previous backup will be saved. The Nord Sound Manager will suggest a location for the backup, the rst time this function is activated (in My Documents/Nord Sound Manager les/). If you rather save the backup le elsewhere, use the browser to pick another destination. Restore To restore a previously saved backup le to the instrument, select this option and browse to a backup le on the hard drive (le extension .neb) and click Open. EE The restore function will begin after you have clicked Open and conrmed your intentions in the dialogue. All the content of a connected Nord instrument will then be irrevocably replaced by the content of the backup le.

Delete Allows you to delete one or several selected sounds. You will be asked to conrm your intentions. You may also use the delete or backspace key on the computer keyboard to perform this action. MM Any Program in the Nord Electro 3 or Wave that used that particular sample that you deleted will probably not sound at all, since it will be missing an important component.

The space that a deleted sample occupied is not immediately available to other sounds, even though it is gone from the list and its location is free. The Flash memory needs to be cleaned to free up the space where the deleted sounds have been. When you add a new sample the cleaning process will be initiated automatically. You also have the option to manually start the cleaning process with the Clean Deleted Space command from the File menu. MM A ashing number in the Nord Electro 3 LED display or Wave OSC2 LED indicates that the sample that the current Program tried to use is not available in the Flash memory. Select another program or download the missing sample to the unit.

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Clean Deleted Space

Menus
In the Nord Sound Manager, the usual Windows and Mac OSX keyboard commands can be used. The menus can be accessed by pressing the Alt key and the underlined letter in the menu bar. Most of the commands can also be accessed by pressing the Ctrl (on the Mac - Command) key together with the letter shown next to the command name in the menus.

This function will clean up the space where any previously deleted pianos, samples or programs have been. This is done in order to make this deleted memory space available to new additions. MM Cleaning is automatically done if you download a new sound to the Nord, but this menu command makes it possible to manually start the cleaning process.

Format This is a radical function; it will format the entire partition that is in focus. All the sounds in the partition will be deleted. You will be asked to conrm your intentions. Exit (Ctrl+Q) Exits the Nord Sound Manager application.

File
Sound Upload (Ctrl+U) Use this function to upload one or several sounds from the Nord instrument memory to a folder on the computer hard drive. Sound Download (Ctrl+D) Use this function to download one or several sounds from the computer hard drive to the next available location in the selected partition. Bank Upload (Ctrl+Shift+U) This allows you to upload an entire bank or partition to a folder on the computer hard drive. Select the desired source (partition and bank) and the destination folder. If you select All, all the banks in the partition will be uploaded. The hierarchical folder structure of the chosen partition - partition/bank/sounds - will be automatically created in the destination folder. Bank Download (Ctrl+Shift+D) Use this function to download an entire bank (or all banks) from the hard drive to the Nord instrument. Please note that you need to match the format of the source and the destination, it is e.g. not possible to download a set of programs to any of the sample banks. MM The content of the source folder will replace the selected bank in the Nord instrument.

Edit
Rename (Ctrl+N) This allows you to rename, and assign a category to a Program. 16 characters can be used, the supported characters are: a-z, A-Z, 0-9 and the hyphen (-). Any other characters will not be displayed in the Sound Manager lists. MM Pianos or samples cannot be renamed so this function is not available if you have selected these.

Delete Allows you to delete a selected item(s) from the Nord instrument memory. You will be asked to conrm your intentions. Select All (Ctrl+A) Select all items in a bank/partition. Invert Selection This will deselect the original selection and then select all the other items in the list.

Backup (Ctrl+B) This will make a backup of all the samples, programs and menu settings (System & MIDI menus) in the Nord instrument. The le that is created on the hard drive will have the extension .nXb, where X will depend on which unit you have. Backing up the entire memory content in this manner will take some time, depending on the sizes of the samples.

Backing up from the Nord Sound Manager is done in an incremental manner. Unless you change the name or the location of the back up le, only the samples and/or programs/patches that have been changed since the previous backup will be saved. Restore (Ctrl+R) To restore a previously saved backup le to the instrument, select this option and browse to a backup le on the hard drive (le extension .neb) and click Open. EE The restore function will begin after you have clicked Open and conrmed your intentions in the dialogue. All the content of a connected Nord will then be irrevocably replaced by the content of the backup le.

View
Organize (Ctrl+O) When this option is checked, the lists will show all the available locations in the selected partition/bank and not only the occupied ones. This will for instance make it easier to drag a le to a specic free location in the middle of the list. If this is unchecked, only the occupied locations will be shown. Dual View (Ctrl+L) When this option is checked, the window will be divided in two lists. The two lists makes it easy to move programs from one location to another. You can make the lists show separate banks with the dropdowns. Rearranging programs is simply a matter of drag and drop. Drag a program from one bank/list to another bank/list in either direction.

Press the Ctrl-key on the computer keyboard to copy a selection to the destination during a drag and drop operation. Auto Select (Ctrl+K) When this function is active, programs will be automatically selected in the Nord isntrument when you browse through the Programs in the Manager list, with the computer keyboard arrow keys.

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Help
About Brings up the About box with a information regarding the version of the Nord Sound Manager. You will also see a list of compatible instruments and OS versions, like a Christmas wish list.

Footer Area

Tabs

The footer area is located at the bottom of the Nord Sound Manager window.

Partition Memory Indicator

This indicates the usage of the selected partitions memory. The red area shows the used memory and the green area indicates space that is available for additional sounds.

Piano Samp Lib - Program Organ Presets

Use the tabs to select the desired partition. Type Ctrl+Tab on the computer keyboard to cycle between the four tabs. The drop down menu is used to select the desired bank within the Piano or Organ Preset partitions. The content of the partition will be presented in the list.

The partition sizes varies between the models. Please check the instruments user manual.

Cancel Button
Use this function if you need to cancel a process that is in progress. Certain functions like e.g. a restore process cannot be cancelled.

Search Box
Enter a phrase to quickly present any samples or programs that contains the characters. Press Clear to clear the ltering and show all entries again.

Progress Bars
The two progress bars indicate the progress of an ongoing process. The upper bar shows the progression of the individual processes, and the lower indicates the status of the entire task.

Loc - Location
The banks are organized in locations; the number of locations varies for the different bank types.

Message/Text Area
The left part of the text area will present any conrmations or error messages from the Nord Sound Manager. The right part will indicate if a Nord instrument is connected to the computer and in communication with the Nord Sound Manager. The OS version of the connected instrument will also be displayed here.

Name
The name of the item.

Category
Shows the assigned category for the Programs.

Updates and samples

Please visit our website at http://www.nordkeyboards.com to download any updates of the Nord Sound Manager and sounds that have been released for the Nord instruments.

Size
Shows the le size of the pianos and samples. This may be useful if you need to know how much space e.g. a particular piano occupies in the piano partition. This unit is not shown in the program or organ preset lists.

Ver Version Number

This indicates the version number of the actual piano, sample or program format. Older OS versions may not be able to use sounds in a more recent format.

Info
This area may contain error information about broken, corrupted or rejected les, if e.g. something has happened with a particular sample or piano in the instrument.

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Index
B
Backup 5 6 Bank Down 5 Bank Download 6 Bank Up 5 Bank Upload 6

C
Cancel 7 Clean Deleted Space 6

D
Delete 5, 6 Download 4

E
Exit 6

F
Format 6

I
Invert Selection 6

L
Loc 7

P
Partition Memory 7 Progress 7

R
Rename 5, 6 Restore 5, 6

S
Select All 6 Size 7 Sound Down 5 Sound Up 5 Sound Upload 6

T
Transfer 3

U
Upload 4